Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "What is the Black-White achievement gap and does it change based on the composition of the student body?"

For the last several years, the National Assessment Governing Board and the National Center for Education Statistics have been exploring how the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Nation’s Report Card, can be used to assess the college and career readiness of America’s high school students. Researchers at AIR used existing administrative records from Virginia to examine the relationship between NAEP scores and a set of concrete measures of student success in college and in the labor market.

With recent concerns about the growing resegregation of schools, this analysis sheds light on the relationship between the Black-White achievement gap and the demographic makeup of schools. Accounting for factors such as socioeconomic status and other characteristics, the analysis finds that black student scores were lower, and achievement gaps wider, in mostly black schools.

The persistent achievement gap between Black and White students has frustrated educators, parents, and policymakers for decades. In this blog post, Sami Kitmitto and George Bohrnstedt discuss a recent AIR study for the National Center for Education Statistics that highlights the potentially detrimental effect of school segregation.

Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "How does the racial composition of a school’s student body differ for the average Black or White student?"

Created using data from School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap, this infographic addresses the question, "Are most schools with a majority of Black students concentrated in cities, suburbs, towns, or rural areas?"

Magnet schools are best known for offering unique programs or curricula to attract students from outside a school’s neighborhood; many started off as neighborhood public schools but converted with the goals of increasing student diversity and achievement. A nine-year AIR study of 21 magnet schools found that while there was limited evidence that the schools were successful in increasing diversity, there was inconclusive evidence of increased student achievement.